As April draws to a close, we’d like to thank all of the BLP poets who contributed to our poem-a-day feature during National Poetry Month. To cap off the month, we are proud to feature Mary Biddinger, whose chapbook Saint Monicawas recently published by Black Lawrence Press.

What My Body Taught You

It was cold and then colder. The underbelly
of an overpass, carotid of your favorite creek,

bless me. Your hands were the gentlest.
Sometimes you weren’t moving, and snow

would dare itself to cross your back.
They would never pack more than one of you

on any ark. You had enough trouble
with yourself already. Thought the doilies

were handkerchiefs. Thought there was such
thing as heavenly intervention,

or fires that kept themselves to the corners
of your studio. Your handwriting

on the back of an envelope. Midnight
burning of transaction registers, your birth